α. His deceptions have all one object: the accomplishment of our fall.
β. No man can worship Satan, without falling first most grievously.
6. Satan begins with small temptations, and ends with great ones; begins with a matter of bread, and ends with an offer of kingdoms. This teaches us not to despise small temptations; they are the forerunners of greater ones, the little foxes which spoil the vines. (Cant. ii. 15.) Give an inch, and Satan will take an ell. St. Peter began his fall by mixing with bad company about a fire; he ended by denying his Master with oaths and curses.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.
I. Hitherto Christ has answered with gentleness, as the shafts of the devil were aimed simply at Himself as man; but now that Satan casts the arrow of blasphemy against God, He is kindled with zeal: thereby teaching us to bear our own injuries with meekness, but to resent with the flame of indignation any affront offered to the majesty of God. So Christ endured patiently being called a gluttonous man and a winebibber, but He was fired with zeal when He saw His Father’s house made a house of merchandise.
II. Christ said not, Get thee behind Me, Satan; but, Get thee hence, Satan: for to Satan there was left no place for repentance, whilst to Peter, all that was needed was a following of Jesus in His humiliations and sufferings.
III. The weapons wielded by Christ in His temptation, were, pure trust in God, the Word of God, and hatred of the devil.
IV. It is of advantage that when we are tempted, we should recognize the tempter through his disguise. Temptation loses half its power when it is recognized as a temptation. When Christ showed Satan that He knew him, at once Satan took to flight. (1 Cor. xi. 14. 2 Cor. ii. 11. 1 John iii. 4.)
V. Christ made no allusion to Satan’s offer, but passed at once to the condition, to show us that we should not suffer his allurements to find the smallest lodgment in our minds.
VI. Christ made use of the words, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, instead of Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, Deut. vi. 13, from which He quoted, to show that in Him we have passed from the bondage of fear to the liberty of love, from the fear of servants to the reverence of children, that we have come to the perfect love of the New Covenant, which casteth out fear of the Old Law.